The Disappearance of South Crossing - Another Lost Neighborhood of Evesham

In the late 1950s, Pine Homes, a developer in North Jersey, commissioned a study which told them that the Greater Camden area was on the 'verge of tremendous growth.' But that growth would not hit Evesham until Cherry Hill had been built up. So Pine Homes purchased 450 acres in Evesham and waited.

Almost a decade later, in 1967, the Evesham Township Planning Board gave Pine Homes approval to build a new neighborhood of 685 homes on 250 of those acres, just east of the Marlton Circle. The rest of the land would be put aside for future development. The new neighborhood would be across Route 70 from the newly completed Heritage Village.

In July, 1967, ground was broken on the first section of homes, 179 homes in the new neighborhood of South Crossing. Five different styles of homes were planned: the Berkshire (French-Italian), Gladstone (Victorian), Devonshire (Colonial), Hampshire (Williamsburg) and Foxcroft (Rustic).

The Berkshire

The Gladstone

The Hampshire, the most popular of South Crossing homes

The Foxcroft

In order to provide extra incentive to new homeowners, free golf club memberships at Indian Springs and free swim club memberships at Paragon Swim Club were offered. Paragon Swim Club was the precursor to Chartwell.

Paragon Swim Club 1970 on the left, Chartwell Swim Club in 2018 on the right

In September 1967, samples of each of the homes were made available to the public for the Grand Opening. By March 1968, the first buyers had moved in. While the developer was reporting excellent sales, by September 1968, only 30 families had moved in.

Suddenly, in December 1968, Pine Homes sold approximately 600 of their remaining plots to Levitt and Sons. Levitt combined the purchase with another made in 1967, eventually building Cambridge Park. Before the sale, approximately 30-40 homes were built by Pine Homes in South Crossing. Those homes are now interspersed with homes by Levitt and Sons.

In talking with people around town, there seems to be no clear definition of where the borders of Cambridge Park lie. It appears, though, that Cambridge Park has consumed South Crossing, because there is no trace of it left officially. South Crossing is not contained in a listing of neighborhoods on voting maps, nor a map of school zones or bus routes. In fact, all traces of South Crossing in print ended in 1980, with the exception of 3 classified ads inexplicably placed in late 1989 and early 1990 for homes in 'South Crossing.'

The final mention of 'South Crossing' I could locate, January 1990

If you google 'South Crossing' and 'Marlton' today, you'll get an office complex on Lippincott Drive, built in 1990 also named South Crossing.

South Crossing Office Park, part of the Marlton Crossing Complex

UPDATE: 3/18/21

So where was South Crossing? HistoricAerials.com shows you where, though the map is copyrighted and I can't reproduce it here. But you can view their overhead photo from 1970 for the exact location. (I would really encourage you to click that link. Its really cool to see what Evesham looked like in 1970.) Here is an overhead of the neighborhood in 1970.

South Crossing to the east. The houses on the south side of Overington are a different neighborhood. 1970

It corresponds roughly to the blue box below.

Walking the streets of 'South Crossing', you'll notice the streetlights are different. Old-timey black streetlights line the streets of South Crossing, whereas the adjacent streets in Cambridge Park have the standard lights

Street light from South Crossing

Streetlight in Cambridge Park. You can the other type of streetlight in South Crossing in the distance

So here's the mystery. The Philadelphia Inquirer on October 6, 1968 reported that 30 families had moved in. The aerial photo from 1970 shows more than 30 houses. But according to the tax map and Trulia.com, only two homes show as being built in 1968. The rest were built in 1972, 1974 or later. Where did the other 28+ homes built in 1968 go? I assume the tax maps must be incorrect (and that Trulia.com gets their information from the publicly available tax maps).

Or did South Crossing vanish?

This post was the 2nd in a series of 'Lost Neighborhoods of Evesham'. You can read about the Lost Neighborhood of Willow Hill here. This is also the 2nd post about the 'Greater' Cambridge Park neighborhood. Click here for the story about the Marlton-Medford Airport, which was located where Cambridge Park currently sits.

List of Previous Blog Posts

Like my Facebook Page to get the latest posts - A View From Evesham. You can email me at MarltonNeil@yahoo.com.